21.07. 2021
Source: McKinny et al., 2018
Joshua 10:29 Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and attacked it.
Source: Joshua 10:29 NIV
2 Kings 19:8 When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.
Source: 2 Kings 19:8 NIV
2 Kings 23:31-32 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah. 32 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his predecessors had done.
Source: 2 Kings 23:31-32 NIV
Jeremiah 52:1-3 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah. 2 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done. 3 It was because of the Lord’s anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end he thrust them from his presence.
Source: Jeremiah 52:1-3 NIV
Source: Tel Burna Excavation Project
Provides relative or absolute dating of mineral grains.
Based on the fact that if a mineral is exposed to sufficient light (e.g., sunlight), some or all of this stored energy will be lost.
OSL provides more precise dating than radiocarbon method (ranging from a few centuries to about 150,000 years).
Source: Author
| Name of soil separate | Diameter limits in mm (WRB classification) |
|---|---|
| Clay | less than 0.002 |
| Sand | 0.002 – 0.063 |
| Very fine sand | 0.063 – 0.125 |
| Fine sand | 0.125 – 0.20 |
| Medium sand | 0.20 – 0.63 |
| Coarse sand | 0.63 – 1.25 |
| Very coarse sand | 1.25 – 2.00 |
It enables to determine changes in soil texture through archaeological stratigraphy.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/
Soil samples are irradiated with photons, usually from an X-ray tube. The X-ray beam excites electrons in the sample, causing it to emit secondary X-rays (fluoresce). The emitted energies occur at energies specific to elements in the sample, appearing as peaks over a given energy spectrum.
The height or intensity of a given peak reflects, in part, the concentration of that element in the sample and may be converted to units of concentration, usually by comparison to a regression line or quadratic algorithm based on well characterized standards
It is a fast and cheap method of obtaining data directly in the field.
Data processing requires thorough statistical processing compositional data - Aitchison geometry).
Source: Smith et al., 2020
Source: Michal Hejcman
“When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.”
Source: Isaiah 37:8-17 NIV; https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/
Source: cs.wikipedia
It has been demonstrated that it is possible to integrate several geoarchaeological methods and thus explain certain past human activities at a tell, based on sedimentary traces analysis.
Iron Age IIB fill is an artificial sediment transferred from the tel’s slope to support the wall. The conclusions were confirmed by the use of the POSL.
These results made it possible to create a hypothesis about the site’s history during the Iron Age II. It can be assumed that the transfer of soil was part of the preparations carried out in apprehension as by Sennacherib ’s military campaign in 701 BCE (2 Kgs 19:8-9).
Aeolian dust deposition was confirmed by the presence of Ca in the topsoil.
Abrahams, P., Entwistle, J., Dodgshon, R., 2010. The Ben Lawers historic landscape project: Simultaneous multi-element analysis of former settlement and arable soils by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. J. Archaeol. Method Theory 17, 231–248. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-010-9086-8
Aitchison, J., 1982. The Statistical Analysis of Compositional Data. J. R. Stat. Soc. Ser. B 44, 139–177.
Amadio, M., 2019. Tracing post-depositional processes and preservation of architectural materials and deposits in the semi-arid environment of southern Cyprus: A micromorphological approach. J. Archaeol. Sci. Reports 27, 101986. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.101986
Bar-Matthews, M., Ayalon, A., Kaufman, A., 1998. Middle to Late Holocene (6,500 Yr. Period) Paleoclimate in the Eastern Mediterranean Region from Stable Isotopic Composition of Speleothems from Soreq Cave, Israel. pp. 203–214. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3659-6_9
Dan, J., Yaalon, D.H., Koyumdjisky, H., Raz, Z., 1976. The soils of Israel. Pamphlet 159. The Volcani Center, Bet Dagan, Israel: Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Organization Institute of Soils and Water, Soil Conservation and Drainage Department.
Entwistle, J., Abrahams, P.W., Dodgshon, R.A., 1998. Multi-element analysis of soils from Scottish historical sites. Interpreting land-use history through the physical and geochemical analysis of soil. J. Archaeol. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1006/jasc.1997.0199
Goldberg, P., 1979. Geology of late bronze age mudbrick from Tel Lachish. Tel Aviv 6, 60–67. https://doi.org/10.1179/033443579788497478
Goldberg, P., Macphail, R.I., 2006. Practical and Theoretical Geoarchaeology. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.
Huntley, D.J., Godfrey-Smith, D.I., Thewalt, M.L.W., 1985. Optical dating of sediments. Nature 313, 105–107. https://doi.org/10.1038/313105a0
Itkin, D., Geva-Kleinberger, A., Yaalon, D.H., Shaanan, U., Goldfus, H., 2012. Nārĩ in the Levant: historical and etymological aspects of a specific Calcrete formation. Earth Sciences History 31 (2), 210–228.
Itkin, D., Crouvi, O., Curtis Monger, H., Shaanan, U., Goldfus, H., 2018. Pedology of archaeological soils in tells of the Judean foothills, Israel. Catena 168, 47–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2018.03.014
Lian, O.B., 2013. Optical Dating, 2nd ed, Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science: Second Edition. Elsevier B.V. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-53643-3.00042-X
Lucke, B., Sandler, A., Vanselow, K.A., Bruins, H.J., Abu-jaber, N., Bä, R., 2019. Composition of Modern Dust and Holocene Aeolian Sediments in Archaeological Structures of the Southern Levant. Atmosphere (Basel). 10. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10120762
McKinny, C., Yang, B., Cassuto, D., Shai, I., 2018. Illuminating a Canaanite and Judahite town: the archaeological background of Tel Burna, in: Chai, T., Johnson, D. (Eds.), Essays in Honor of Kay Fountain. pp. 1–15.
Porat, N., Davidovich, U., Avni, Y., Avni, G., Gadot, Y., 2018. Using OSL Measurements to Decipher Soil History in Archaeological Terraces, Judean Highlands, Israel. L. Degrad. Dev. 29, 643–650. https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.2729
Porat, N., López, G.I., Lensky, N., Elinson, R., Avni, Y., Elgart-Sharon, Y., Faershtein, G., Gadot, Y., 2019. Using portable OSL reader to obtain a time scale for soil accumulation and erosion in archaeological terraces, the Judean Highlands, Israel. Quat. Geochronol. 49, 65–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.QUAGEO.2018.04.001
Reimann, C., Filzmoser, P., Fabian, K., Hron, K., Birke, M., Demetriades, A., Dinelli, E., Ladenberger, A. and The GEMAS Project Team, 2012. The concept of compositional data analysis in practice - Total major element concentrations in agricultural and grazing land soils of Europe. Sci. Total Environ. 426, 196–210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.02.032
Riehl, S., Shai, I., 2015. Supra-regional trade networks and the economic potential of iron age II sites in the southern Levant. J. Archaeol. Sci. Rep. 3, 525–533.
Rosen, A.M., 1986. Cities of clay: the geoarchaeology of tells. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Sci. 50, 373–386. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1064229317040093
Rouillon, M., Taylor, M.P., 2016. Can field portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) produce high quality data for application in environmental contamination research? Environ. Pollut. 214, 255–264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2016.03.055
Sanderson, D.C.W., Murphy, S., 2010. Using simple portable OSL measurements and laboratory characterisation to help understand complex and heterogeneous sediment sequences for luminescence dating. Quat. Geochronol. 5, 299–305. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.QUAGEO.2009.02.001
Sedov, S.N., Aleksandrovskii, A.L., Benz, M., Balabina, V.I., Mishina, T.N., Shishkov, V.A., Şahin, F., Özkaya, V., 2017. Anthropogenic sediments and soils of tells of the Balkans and Anatolia: Composition, genesis, and relationships with the history of landscape and human occupation. Eurasian Soil Sci. 50, 373–386. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1064229317040093
Smith, C. (Ed.), 2020. Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, 2nd ed, Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1
Shai, I., Cassuto, D., Dagan, A., Uziel, J., 2012. The fortifications at Tel Burna: date, function and meaning, Israel. Israel Explor. J. 62, 141–157.
Shai, I., Dagan, A., Riehl, S., Orendi, A., Uziel, J., Suriano, M., 2014. A private stamped seal handle from Tel Burna, Israel. ZDPV 130, 121–137.
Shai, I., McKinny, C., Uziel, J., 2015. Late bronze age cultic activity in ancient Canaan: a view from Tel Burna. BASOR 374, 115–133.
Shai, I., 2017. Tel Burna: A Judahite Fortified Town in the Shephelah, The Shephelah during the Iron Age: Recent Archaeological Studies. “… as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the Shephelah” (1 Kings 10:27, 2 Chronicles 1:15). Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana.
Šmejda, L., Hejcman, M., Horák, J., Shai, I., 2017. Ancient settlement activities as important sources of nutrients (P, K, S, Zn and Cu) in Eastern Mediterranean ecosystems – The case of biblical Tel Burna, Israel. Catena 156, 62–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2017.03.024
Šmejda, L., Hejcman, M., Horák, J., Shai, I., 2018. Multi-element mapping of anthropogenically modified soils and sediments at the Bronze to Iron Ages site of Tel Burna in the southern Levant. Quat. Int. 483, 111–123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2017.11.005
Templ, M., Hron, K., Filzmoser, P., 2011. robCompositions: An R-package for Robust Statistical Analysis of Compositional Data, in: Compositional Data Analysis: Theory and Applications. pp. 341–355. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119976462.ch25
Uziel, J., Shai, I., 2010. The settlement history of Tel Burna: results of the surface survey. Tel Aviv 37, 227–245.
Yaalon, D.H., Ganor, E., 1973. The influence of dust on soils during the Quaternary. Soil Sci. 116, 146–155.
cs.wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Tel Burna Excavation Project